Monthly Archives: December 2015

Following the political choices set out in the recent Spending Review, it would seem inevitable that local authorities are going to need to make cuts to important services next year, including those provided to children and disabled people. Recent Kings Fund analysisshows that the 2% precept on council tax is a totally inadequate solution to the funding crisis for adult social care. No-one seems to be talking about what the Spending Review means for children’s social care, which wasn’t even mentioned on the Department for Education press release – but it is unlikely to be good news.

The issue now is not whether there should be cuts, but whether the cuts which have to be made are lawful, both in terms of their effect on services and those who use them and the process by which the decisions were made. As Mr Justice Blake said in R (Rahman) v Birmingham…

While writing about Devon days, life, loss and inhumanity yesterday evening, I received this email from NHS England:

Report finalisation:

Following a series of comments regarding the accuracy of methods of reporting to national NHS incident reporting systems, as set out in the Mazars report, Mazars have made some further amendments to their report.

Publication:

We have been working towards a date of publication w/c 7th December. However, this is now not possible. There is a meeting being scheduled for the 11th December, with Mazars and NHS England national team to agree publication date and process.

This will include the planning for support for families, who may seek information post publication.

ERG will be sent final report ahead of publication, together with the communication handling plan.

Kind regards

ERG stands for Expert Reference Group.
WTAF stands for What the Actual Fuck?